My husband thinks I’ve gone completely mad. He’s not saying much, but I can see the look in his eyes when I start to talk about my latest discovery – food haiku. That sort of squinty-eyed attempt to discern if I’m serious or just goofing around.
But food haiku is for real. Celebrating food and our experiences with it or how it makes us feel in measured syllables: 5-7-5 to be exact. Of course, the 5-7-5 rhythm is different in different languages, but generally there are seasonal references and something called a “cutting word” about which both the rhythm and the meaning turn. In this post, I offer a few of my own. Please feel free to leave your own. You don’t have to be a professional poet to get out there and be creative – just do it!
(Words by Laura Kelley. Photo of Chilis, Mortar and Pestle by Mark Huls @Dreamstime.com; Photo of Karsts above the Bay by kmbrowne@Dreamstime.com; Ink Drawing of Running Horse by D. Tsolmon; Photo of Songzanlin Temple by Guochun@Dreamstime.com; Photo of Prayer Flags on the Mountain by Weixin Shen.)